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Water pollution is the contamination of natural water bodies by chemical, physical, radioactive or pathogenic microbial substances. [2] Point sources of water pollution are described by the CWA as "any discernible, confined, and discrete conveyance from which pollutants are or may be discharged."
A point source of pollution is a single identifiable source of air, water, thermal, noise or light pollution. A point source has negligible extent, distinguishing it from other pollution source geometrics (such as nonpoint source or area source). The sources are called point sources because in mathematical modeling, they can be approximated as ...
Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource. Sources of water pollution are either point sources or non-point sources. [4] Point sources have one identifiable cause, such as a storm drain, a wastewater treatment plant, or an oil spill. Non-point sources are more diffuse.
Point sources could include leaking septic tanks, oil spills, dumping of waste, or wastewater treatment facilities. [15] In order to prevent point source pollution from occurring, the Clean Water Act regulates what can be discharged into a water body by requiring each facility to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES ...
Although these pollutants have originated from a point source, the long-range transport ability and multiple sources of the pollutant make it a nonpoint source of pollution; if the discharges were to occur to a body of water or into the atmosphere at a single location, the pollution would be single-point. Nonpoint source water pollution may ...
Nonpoint sources are the most significant single source of water pollution in the United States, accounting for almost half of all water pollution, [1] and agricultural runoff is the single largest source of nonpoint source water pollution. [2] This water pollution has a number of detrimental effects on human health and the environment.
The pollution may come from a variety of sources, ranging from point source water pollution (from a single discharge point) to more diffuse, landscape-level causes, also known as non-point source pollution and air pollution.
A point source of fluid is the inverse of a fluid point sink (a point where fluid is removed). Whereas fluid sinks exhibit complex rapidly changing behavior such as is seen in vortices (for example water running into a plug-hole or tornadoes generated at points where air is rising), fluid sources generally produce simple flow patterns, with ...